BREAKING PROPERTY NEWS – 04/04/2022

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.

 

Purplebricks, the missing CEO and the power of influencers

Today is the day that Purplebricks should have seen a changing of the guard. Vic Darvey’s successor Helena Marston was to be installed as the new CEO, but it has not happened.

Someone asked me the other day if being a proptech real estate influencer was a real thing. My answer is that very often when I post a few words, some of the most influential people in real estate on the globe pick up the phone and call me.

Not only do I communicate across many social media platforms and publications (one as an editor and the other has an owner) to over 100,000 people each day, I also have four decades of connections and a contact book bursting at the seams.So, when I say something, people think about it. I am not saying they agree or even like what I communicate, but it does have often far-reaching consequences.

As an example, I repeat below a small post I did in reply to a story run by a digital news publication that reported the imminent arrival of Purplebricks’ CEO. It was only a few words.

“Is having no agency experience a problem if you are the CEO of a national agency?

After all, Alison Platt did the same thing. She was a NED at Tesco and became CEO of Countrywide PLC, the UK’s largest estate agency group, from 2014 to January 2018.

Wait a minute…she did have to resign after overseeing a 90% fall in the company’s share price and a second profit warning in three months. Then the company stumbled along until the Connells Group bought the assets, and its C-suite made up of career property professionals made a profit within 12 months.

Maybe Purplebricks should have a rethink, as a 90% haircut off the share price which today is 23p, would mean that it would be 2.3p a share – unthinkable. Well so is trading at 23p on the AIM.

Purplebricks’ future hinges once again on fuzzy logic. We will let someone who has never sold a property in their life as an agent run the show.”

I leave you to wonder if, following this, anyone made that call to me.

Also, who will indeed be the new CEO of HMS Purplebricks as it glides towards some very large icebergs?

 

Is Boomin about to scale up even further with extra funding?

As someone who deals with property technology and fintech startups, over a hundred of them in the last two years alone, by anyone’s standards Boomin has gone from MVP to scale up in spectacular style. And they are not my client – my analysis is based on data.

It will be interesting to see where all the portals sit this time next year, as the digital native property consumer seeks out better solutions for their property needs. Digital user experience is king, hence Amazon’s 40% growth in the last two years and its $1.7 trillion valuation today.

So it comes as no surprise that SkyNews reported the following a few days ago.

“Boomin, the online property portal founded by the former boss of Purplebricks, is close to finalising a new round of funding that will value it at close to £150m.

Sky News has learnt that Boomin is putting the finishing touches to a capital injection that will see up to £20m committed to the business.

“City sources said the company, which was launched by Michael Bruce last year, was likely to announce details of the fundraising – which has been overseen by Oakley Advisory – in the coming weeks. As part of the round, estate agents who sign up to the portal are being offered an allocation from a pot of free shares.

“Existing investors, including Channel 4’s media-for-equity venture and Foxtons, are understood to be participating in the latest raise. Boomin says it has amassed 8000 agents on its platform, including many of Britain’s 100 largest brands, including Hunters, Belvoir Group and Carter Jonas.

“It recently launched SmartVal, an online valuation tool which it says sits in between fully automated valuations and detailed physical property inspections. Boomin was set up by Mr Bruce and his brother Kenny to challenge existing property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla.”

Andrew Stanton

CEO & Founder Proptech-PR. Proptech Real Estate Influencer, Executive Editor of Estate Agent Networking. Leading PR consultancy in Proptech & Real Estate.

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

London property no longer a safe bet as real-terms prices slide

Inner London stagnates: Wandsworth, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster saw annual growth of less than 0.5% between 2016 and 2024, new Rathbones research reveals. Southwark in freefall: Average house prices fell by 2% over the past eight years. Outer London underperforms: Even Bexley, the best-performing borough, only saw 2.8% annual growth –…
Read More
Breaking News

Low deposit mortgage choice boosted to 17-year high

Moneyfacts UK Mortgage Trends Treasury Report data reveals the combined choice of higher loan-to-value mortgages (90% and 95% LTV) rose to its highest count in 17 years. These deals combined represent 19% of the residential mortgage market overall, where choice is at an 18-year high. Month-on-month the overall average two- and five-year fixed mortgage rates…
Read More
Breaking News

Property market beset by delays as conveyancer queries vary by an ‘alarming’ 8,176%

The scale of inefficiency in the property market was laid bare today by new analysis that reveals some conveyancers receive 83 times as many Land Registry queries as others. The number of requests sent to conveyancers to progress cases varied by an “alarming” 8,176%, ranging from 2.9 per 100 applications to 237, new analysis of…
Read More
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 8/09/25

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X. MetaWealth and One United Partners launch €18 million tokenized real estate bonds opportunity in Bucharest Press Release London, UK & Bucharest, Romania Sept 2025  MetaWealth, a tokenised real estate investment platform, today launched a €17.9 million bonds basket targeting 19% annual returns, as part of its…
Read More
Estate Agent Talk

Hodge adds 95% LTV to Resi and Resi Retire propositions to support borrowers with complex income

New 95% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage options have been added to Hodge’s Resi and Resi Retire propositions, giving customers from age 21 with varied income types greater access to the property market. These latest enhancements align with Hodge’s wider shift towards “lifelong lending”, bringing together core residential and retirement propositions, where lending is based on a…
Read More
Breaking News

Younger generations see homeownership as less important

The latest research from Yopa has revealed how attitudes towards homeownership vary between generations, showing that while the majority still aspire to own, its perceived importance has waned among younger buyers who also find the path to ownership more challenging than their parents did. Yopa surveyed* Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z to…
Read More